World oil prices rallied close to US$100 per barrel on Friday, as traders absorbed impressive fourth-quarter US economic growth and fretted over worsening political turmoil in Egypt.
Most other commodity markets also won support this week from news that the US economic recovery picked up speed in the last three months of last year, stoking hopes of strengthening demand for raw materials.
OIL: London Brent oil surged as high as US$99.74 per barrel in late afternoon trading on Friday, striking a new two-year peak.
The crude oil market won further support from intensifying political unrest in Egypt.
Oil jumped “on the back of concerns that increased unrest in Egypt and the rest of North Africa could impact the Suez Canal and the safe passage of oil and gas to and from Europe,” CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said.
Meanwhile, the gap between Brent and New York has widened to a record, at more than US$12, owing to the high level of crude stockpiles at the Cushing storage depot in Oklahoma.
By Friday afternoon on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in March leapt to US$99.34 a barrel from US$96.86 a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, Texas light sweet crude for March delivery eased to US$88.75 a barrel from US$89.36.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold prices slipped but it remains within grasp of its recent record peak.
The glamorous commodity had hit a record US$1,431.25 on Dec. 7, boosted by its safe-haven status as investors fretted over the eurozone debt crisis.
By late Friday on the London Bullion Market, gold eased to US$1,334.50 an ounce from US$1,343.50 a week earlier.
Silver dropped to US$26.68 an ounce from US$27.14.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum edged down to US$1784 an ounce from US$1,817.
Palladium dipped to US$806 an ounce from US$814.
COCOA: Cocoa hit another one-year pinnacle at US$3,420 a tonne in New York as political uncertainty in Ivory Coast stoked supply concerns.
The price of a tonne of cocoa also reached a six-month high of £2,307 in London.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained